The Practice U Lifestyle Is Brain Food That Feeds My Mind and Medicates My Soul
Thank you for visiting our page to learn more about us. We hope you agree it's encouraging to know we thought about you and saw it fitting to have an apparel that inspires and motivates us to present the very best of who we are when pursuing our ideas, goals, and dreams, as well as overcoming a few life struggles without compromising your soul. The initial step in achieving such goals and dreams is I must first have a willingness of the mind to listen and learn, ask questions to get an understanding, reread material that helps me to grow, replay the video to study what I did not see earlier, do the work, and be consistent. When we do so, our practiced work becomes life lessons. Most of us learn a lot about ourselves when we experience life lessons not taught at home or in the school.
Life lessons are a key component of the Practice U Lifestyle. A lifestyle is defined as the way a person or group of people live their lives based on their values, behavior, choices they make, their habits, rituals, routines and more. One's lifestyle choice is usually taught or self-taught starting at home within the family as well as interacting with their peers at school. It is learned and earned from our failures and successes. In the School of Life, our share of setbacks and disappointments from the decisions we made in the past teach us gradually. It is also true with our share of success. The key is to learn from our experiences and feel the growth within.
To encourage you in your work, we offer our Practice U theme song and video on the "About Us" page. The hook says, "The more I practice, practice, practice, The better I become, the better I become," meaning the better I become at my practiced work. My practiced work shows me how improving so long as I stick with my routine. I'm going to get better focusing on my short-term and long-term goal(s).
From elementary school to the college graduation, we're all required to do homework. As a student our goal is to pass the class, speak our best and present our best. Take for example when I was challenged to present my first speech. It was a little scary, uncomfortable. I was nervous. To get over that fear, I had to sacrifice my fun time for study time. The more I studied and memorized my speech, the stronger my muscle memory helped me to reach my short-term goal which was to get an "A" on my speech.
I practiced presenting my speech in front of my family, friends, and an audience of strangers. I evolved and began to feel no pressure. My nervousness was a minimum and it was all natural instinct. Like the character Kevin from the Christmas movie Home Alone said, "I did it!", so did I. I grabbed a passing grade and was happy about my success. It is from that experience that one can feel the power of homework moving into repetition and repetition moving from muscle memory to automaticity. In one word it's called, "practice".
From the preschool years to the teenage years we're always involved in some form of learning and practicing to reinforce the teaching. We learned as a preschooler how to tie our shoestrings. As an elementary school kid we learned how to ride a bicycle. As a teenager we learned how to drive our parents crazy, I mean drive a car, shift the gear stick of a manual transmission in a car, ride a motorcycle or electric scooter. As an adult, we learned how to budget our money and to stay out of debt.
Repetition is a must in order to develop our skill set in reading and writing comprehension, math, history, science, sports and so much more. Nurturing our talent in the performing arts such as singing, dancing or playing an instrument requires repetitious practice. Practice is necessary in the visual arts. It is also necessary in mastering a specific hobby that moves one into becoming a specialist.
In other areas in the School of Life there are those who practice monitoring their eating habits for health reasons, working on improving their attitude towards the positive to reduce the stress, exercising to lose weight, gain muscle, maintain a healthy firm body or learn a new language. In each of those instances we subconsciously became aware that the more I practice, practice, practice, the better I become.
That being said, I maintain you can't succeed without the repetitious work. Reflecting back on all of your accomplishments you would agree with the timeless message from our Practice U theme song that says, "Practice is forever in every area of life. We don't stop and we definitely can't run from practice" In short, it's like being an athlete. It don't make sense for me to run from practice, when practicing helps me to grow up.
If I run from practice, I want improve. However, when I put in the consistent work, the rewards and benefits I give back to myself are “I keep moving towards self-improvement”. If you understand this basic principle, then you should be able to connect this affirmation with the remaining 4 Life Lessons. These Life Lessons are reminders of what it means to present the very best of you and be consistent in the Practice U Lifestyle.
Life Lesson #2 of 5 is the tagline on our apparel “Master a Higher Degree of Self”. To Master a Higher Degree of Self means I have to Practice Up my quality of thinking, pay attention to the details, and how I present myself consistently. The details of my quality of thinking is a difference maker. It can be mentally appealing and sexy to the minds of a listener. Fortunately, this appeal has nothing to do with my looks, my body, my talent or my success. It has everything to do with my level of mental intelligence, emotional maturity, and Spiritual relationship based on Bible Scriptures, not a philosophy or my opinions rooted in "I feel like". This type of work is special, because the Scriptures controls the mind, and the mind controls the body. To Master a Higher Degree of Self will take time.
To Practice Up also means we must be challenged where we are weak. All of us have areas in our life we need to work on. To get through the challenge or my reluctance to change, there are times I'll need some guidance and surround myself with wise, caring, educated, and/or disciplinarian types of people who won't tolerate my foolishness. Such people can help me to look at myself or my work ethic, move my thinking from complaining about everything to working towards the solution, moving me from blaming people to looking at where I can improve, moving me from no skill to enrolling in school and graduating from school with new skills. At some point, I have to confess in order to Master a Higher Degree of Self, I have to Practice Up my quality of thinking and pay attention to the details.
Make the connection. Our challenge is always about choosing between two situations. Take for example food choices and our physical health. If we continue to eat the daily advertised and often promoted $5.00 fast food meal deals targeted at those who are weak for that type of food, then we won't reach our health goals and our body will show it in the mirror. However, if we have made up in our mind that junk food or comfort food is not healthy for our brain or our body, we start on a journey that will change the way we look and feel about ourselves. That being said, surrounding ourselves with unhealthy food is like surrounding ourselves with unhealthy friends. We have to choose what's best for us in the long run and work towards overcoming that challenge. That's why you Practice Up.
At Practice U, we encourage you, for the benefit of you to take time to complete our homework assignment because health and fitness is another part of the Practice U Lifestyle. Step 1, Go to Google and place into the search box the following: (1) Food that prevent high blood pressure (2) Food that prevent high cholesterol (3) Food that prevent cancer, and (4) Food that prevent sugar diabetes. Next Google, "What are unhealthy processed food?" and "What are unhealthy ultra processed food?" Take notes then move to the next step. Step 2, Read the "Nutrition Facts" on the back of ALL packaged food, can food, especially the stuff we love to eat from the grocery store, corner liquor stores, and fast food chains. Now go to the final step. Step 3, Go to Google and input (1) How much saturated fat per day, (2) trans fat per day, (3) cholesterol per day, (3) sodium per day, (4) carbohydrates per day, (5) sugar per day. Such learned information about our health is like food to the brain.
Your research should lead you to recognize our body should not exceed a certain number per day. Ultimately, it’s my choice to think critically about my health and fitness. We should all come to the conclusion that I have to eat fruits and vegetables, drink lots of water to clean out the processed food and ultra processed food from my body daily. I have to rest and exercise consistently. I have to remove the poison from my body so the blood inside my blood vessels can breath freely.
I shouldn't want to clog up my blood vessels (arteries) and stop my blood from circulating. That will cause me to suffer in pain. The same goes for the meat we eat filled with lots of sodium and chemicals to preserve the food. If I'm going to move towards self-improvement health-wise, I have to make the decision to not only Practice Up my quality of thinking, but also to Practice Upward Now and Forever my choice of food that's healthy for my body and brain. Health officials and scientists call that approach "clean nutrition". But suppose I don't want to. Suppose I want to do life my way. Then let's talk about "Taught Sense versus Bought Sense".
Life Lesson #3 of 5 is Rebounding from My Bought Sense and getting back on track is something every independent minded young tween, teen, and young adult ages 18-30's go through, saying "I know" "I get it" or worse "I'm already knowing". It's unfortunate that most of us don't really get it until after we get sick from the food we have eaten, and the drinks we have consumed. For others they don't really get it until after their feelings have been hurt from being disrespected or taken for granted. Some have to lose money and become financially broke or lose out on a healthy relationship before self-reflecting then to ask themselves how did I get myself here? The short answer is called bought sense. It was a process of time where you didn't pay attention to the details. You had to learn first-hand why doing what's right is better than doing what I feel all the time. Now it's time to Practice Up.
When we come to a point where we have made up in our mind I want to do better, that's the time when taught sense and bought sense is activated. We should be open to listening more. When our parents, teachers, counselors, mentors or family members were teaching us or trying to guide us, we either listened and followed the teachings or learned the hard way (bought sense).
Another way of saying this is, "Experience is the best teacher, but the tuition is high", meaning now I have to pay the price for not listening, for being stubborn, hard-headed, not willing to change, selfish, arrogantly self-centered, and boastful with pride, then later on forced to self-reflect, eat humble pie, and apologize. Remember saying, "I'm sorry" or "Sorry" don't mean a thing if my behavior and attitude is still the same. I have to want to Practice Up. This is why some people say later on after their pain (bought sense), "Now, I think before I speak, act or react". It's at that point in our lives we should be focusing on changing our bad habits and growing up. It is from my Practiced Up work, I grow and develop my inner-strength, improve my quality of thinking, and decision-making that reveals the newly improved me of today with more work to do.
Just like a student learner in school is seeking to be successful in his or her academics, athletics, the arts, their attitude (positive), have an appetite for clean nutrition, clean environment including at home so do I. By the way, a clean environment also referring to our home environment where the emphasis is on a clean kitchen, clean bathroom toilet seat, toilet bowl inside and all around the base, clean sink, tub, and shower walls, clean bedroom, clean body, and clean fresh air.
Life Lesson #4 of 5 is "You Are Who You Are Because of the People You Surround Yourself With." Surrounding myself with people who are about wisdom, class, and dignity, as opposed to people who are about greed, foolishness, and profanity is another choice I have to give thought to. Dignified people care about themselves and how they present themselves. Oftentimes they have an affect on those of us who are watching and listening because people copy people. They model for us how to dress neatly with dignity and put thought into who I'm representing or who I am copying. They model for us how to watch our words when under pressure. We in return aspire to be like them.
On the other hand when we see people who display greed, foolishness, and profanity, there's an audience of people who are impressed by that negative behavior. Using profanity, foul language, curse words, hate, racial language, and vulgarity to express oneself is never necessary for any one who clearly understands what it means to present the very best of who you are.
As a matter of fact, most people would agree, profanity, hate, racial language, and vulgarity is a learned behavior from another person who was mentally or emotionally angry, hurt, frustrated, disappointed or shocked and they reacted by shouting out loud an outburst of "hmmm..." For many people profanity, hate, racial language, and vulgarity can be a challenge to course correct. A person who has a sensitive ego or is apathetic meaning I don't care will also use such profane words as a defensive reaction to say, "Stop it", "Back off" or "Leave me alone!" Cussing becomes an unconscious practiced habit that some people justify by saying, "It's just words", "freedom of speech" or "a figure of speech".
Not so, profanity, hate, racial language, and vulgarity is definitely a practiced habit, an unwholesome speech, a corrupt form of communicating, and a sign of a limited vocabulary that started very young with an impressionable and inexperienced mind not knowing that these are the bottom of the barrel low swinging morals, values, principles, and social norms that you wouldn't dare use such language in a church or in front of a person you highly respect.
But at home, on the streets or between you and your friends away from your parents "Look Out!" Such word choices are so normalized because we hear profanity, hate, and racial language all the time from TV, radio, music, social media, at the movies, at home, at school, at work from supervisors, teachers, comedians, political leaders, coaches, players, referees, and umpires and many other fields of work.
But I don't have to copy negative behavior. What I can do is remember a part of the Practice U Lifestyle is always presenting my best in my private life and public life consistently. We as a people should not want the next generation of kids, tweens, teens, and young adults 18-30's who are watching, listening, and learning from what they see and hear repeatedly take it to the next level with no conscious of right and wrong and make our society more hideous and reprehensible, meaning extremely disrespectful and unacceptable. Conclusively, we are who we are because of the people we surround ourselves with. This is why wisdom, class, and dignity is a must versus greed, foolishness and profanity. We can do better individually in our family and in our community of families, which leads us to one final Life Lesson.
Life Lesson #5 of 5 is Teach and Uplift Each Member of Your Family First, before uplifting other people outside your family. Family is first and should always be. It is the beginning of establishing the moral compass, values, and principles into each member of the family. Unfortunately, not all of us were taught the same teachings as the family next door or next community. Not all families had the same fair chances in life. We sometimes started from behind not having both a father and mother who were sane and educated with taught sense and bought sense living under the same roof and married for years. We learned about life differently.
Even though it is or was different, there's still some instilled teachings in us we were all born with. Take time to think about since the Fall of Adam and Eve, the original place of taught sense versus bought sense and wisdom versus foolishness. The DNA of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:7-13 and 16-24 is in ALL of us. We have all learned through consequences also known as (aka) bought sense what is right versus wrong, fair versus unfair, good versus bad. We call that type of thinking, "morals". We have all learned through consequences also known as (aka) bought sense what is important and sacred. We call those teachings "values". We have all learned through consequences also known as (aka) bought sense to live according to the rules and guidelines of life. We call those rules, "principles".
When both parents or just one parent teach in the home what are morals, values, and principles, followed up with some action steps called a spanking, punishment or consequences for not obeying, we reinforce the family standard of expectations before our child(ren) walk out the door as a young adult. Parents we have to be proactive, not reactive because practice and a self-disciplined mind builds a stronger inner-me.
When both parents or just one parent share stories, poems, music, videos, TV shows or movies showing the main character taking a stand for what is right versus wrong, fair versus unfair or good versus bad, it reinforces the teaching and builds our child(ren) to remain anchored in having a moral compass. When both parents or just one parent present the facts and evidence of healthy morals, values, and principles, it gives our child(ren) the "how and why" we teach and reteach constantly. The idea is our family first child(ren) will continue the home training when they're away from the house with a new environment of friends, places they work, and the people they meet.
At Practice U we call morals, values, and principles "high MVP credibility" because like a credit score on a credit report, this MVP credibility is earned. Never assume everybody has the same high MVP credibility that guides their conscience and mentors their decision-making. I need to see who you really are when challenged with choosing between, "Do I lie or tell the truth?", "Do I join the group or follow my conscious or parents' teachings?", "Do I give in or walk away?". When our MVP teaching becomes the pillars or foundation in our child's life, actively working 24/7 and stored deep into their brain, they become an example of a matured person.
Secondly, because our brain has a memory capacity of 2.5 million gigabytes, remembering MVP teaching shouldn't be a problem. We have plenty of memory space to keep these 3 pillars or wise gospel truths stored for life. They work together as a smart team and haunt us when we do wrong. If I betray my home training, my conscious should bother me. From practiced work to muscle memory to automaticity, I will either pass or fail some of life's most challenging situations. I have to practice doing things the right way, stay away from the foolishness, speak up for what is right and teach others to do the same.
Plato the Greek philosopher once said the same thing in the 5th century. He said, "Education is teaching our children to desire the right things". I agree with him. From ancient times to modern times, we have learned over time, when we take full responsibility of the things we have said and the wrong we have done, we don't run from them, make excuses, blame others or deny it. We simply make the decision to stop now or transition away to become more self-disciple and move towards self-improvement. If we have to go talk to somebody to get some help, then let's go. If it becomes necessary to ask questions and start listening with the intention to learn, then let's get it on. Take notes, spend some time alone to reflect, and try to restore some broken relationships if it is possible.
Gradually, the consequences of our past emotional and mental decisions will teach us to practice patience, meaning I think before I speak, act or react and recognize patience will lead me to wisdom, and wisdom will lead to become more self-disciplined one of the key ingredients in the Practice U Lifestyle. Subconsciously, we learn that presenting the best of who we are is always be on our mind. From my brain to my soul, this is why I keep moving towards self-improvement!
We hope it is clearer more so now than ever before that there's more to life than my academic and athletic success, my performing and visual arts talent, my financial success as well as my looks, my hair, my clothes, shoes, shape of my body, or electronic gadgets. When people observe me, they should notice the content of my character, the way I treat people, talk to people, inspire and lead people to do better.
To be that person consistently, I need to think, be more proactive, thoughtful, aware, and an example of what it means to be what Practice U calls "a great Prac-ti-co-lo-gist", always thinking about how I present myself in the public's eye and my private life from the inside out. That's the idea you want to hold onto as you pass on the legacy of you being your best and representing the awesome reputable timeless brand of Practice U.
We hope that when you purchase our apparel and accessories, you will enjoy inspiring yourself and others to do the same. Get educated, stay focused, surround yourself with good people, and continue to invest into yourself by reading books pertaining to your ideas, dreams, goals, and healthy relationships. Make the commitment to Practice U “the very best of you” so that you’ll be able to Master a Higher Degree of Self, one day at a time. Practice Up with your quality of thinking and Practice Upward, Now and Forever with an appetite for clean nutrition and a clean environment.